Though my early years seemed happy enough, by seven I started telling myself I was no good I started getting into trouble in school and found myself not mixing very well The few friends I had were silly and I was probably the silliest.
Looking back, I can see the “over the topless” clearly It is one of the big characteristics of an addictive personality, I would out-dare others, rip a plank off a fence, break a light, smash a greenhouse for no reason and was arrested at 12 years old.
I wanted to be like Peter Pan and never grow up, yet Captain Hook, the other side of me, was never far away, ready to cause trouble.
There, in one paragraph, is the recipe for an addictive personality – a drug addict, an alcoholic, a gambler – they do not grow up emotionally At the age of 13 I got drunk, very drunk, and made a fool of myself stealing sherry from my host.
At 14 I started to experience extreme mood swings and at 15 was baptized on one of those swings For a while the euphoria of “conversion” carried me I was just as “over the top” m a good way, for a while.
At 18 I suffered through a period of depression caused by another characteristic of addictive people – self-centeredness Slowly recover-mg from that I met my fiancee-to-be and went to college I was also work-mg in my father’s pharmacy, and I failed abysmally Of course, working with pharmaceutical drugs was not a good idea I experimented ma small way with drugs, abusing ephedrine, which wakes you up and makes you feel very alert, but also gives you vile headaches and stops you sleeping, leaving you feeling awful afterwards.
At first my relationship with my fiancee was very good, but then we started fooling around, and eventually sleeping together The guilt of this life started me on binge drinking which was symptomatic of my guilt.
I was thrown out of my Dad’s shop for a serious betrayal of trust and a serious drug charge I got a new job, but my fiancee had had enough and left me For the next four years I started to really go downhill helped by another major characteristic of addictive people – an inferiority complex I kept telling myself I was no good, like I used to do I left the meeting I drank and drank, I hated my fiancee, I hated myself.
Then I fell m love with another girl, but by this time my addiction to alcohol was getting a serious hold on me My personality deteriorated fast and I was not nice to be with, so she finished with me.
Eventually I was asked back to my Dad’s pharmacy, not a good move For three years I womanized as much as I could, got drunk a lot and took plenty of drugs (from the shop) I learned that anti-sickness tablets meant I could take more drugs and drinks without throwing up.
The effect of abuse is cumulative, the longer you abuse a substance, the more damage you do to yourself, the more physically addicted you become and therefore the worse you feel when you come off For me withdrawal from drugs was not as bad as withdrawal from alcohol, that was about the worst in the world.
During this time I went down to Brixton with a mate of mine to buy some cannabis (I spent all the money I had with me on the drug) I’m not sure why I got lost, but I did and I ended up collapsing with hypothermia and being taken to an emergency place for drug addicts. I was told I would be dead within a few months if I did not stop.
After this I lost my job and was arrested twice on drug-related charges. My house was searched by the Drug Squad and they found large amounts of codeine, tranquilizers and drink. As a result, I came off all drugs, which was very hard, but then substituted the drink for the drugs, which made me feel OK again.
A few weeks later, after a sharp pain and blood tests, I was taken into a medical hospital to be dried out. I was told it would be slow suicide to drink or take drugs. After four days of being sober, I discharged myself, against the advice of the doctors. For three weeks I got worse and worse, hallucinating, and finally admitting myself to a mental hospital where at first I got even worse. After being released, I was still very ill and over the next few months gradually got even worse.
I had lost faith in God, made a few half-hearted attempts at killing myself until I really tried to kill myself with a razor blade. I lost a lot of blood and was nearly brain-damaged. I was stitched up and, the following day, sent to a mental hospital. For five weeks I was put on big doses of major tranquilizers and sleeping capsules. When I eventually got out, my problems were worse, not better.
After such terrible experiences, you may wonder how I ever recovered. The steps were:
- I stopped all tranquilizers.
- I did some work – ill as I was.
- practiced the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And it is absolutely crucial to let go of your old way of life completely. That means getting rid of those friends who tempt you – your old drinking partners and druggie friends.
But there is no point in doing that unless the vacuum left is filled with something better. Part of the “something better” is getting a job, be it a voluntary job like weeding gardens, or a job in a factory. Having some kind of job and giving of your best to that job is very therapeutic and good for stopping feeling sorry for yourself.
What else helps is good diet and keeping fit, doing some exercise you enjoy, getting plenty of sleep and drinking plenty of non-alcoholic liquids. Talking in confidence when it won’t go further is also very helpful. The Christadelphian Care Group was formed out of a need to talk in confidence to somebody who will understand and who may have “been there” and knows what your problem is like.
What about God?
As a baptized follower of Christ, people may think I’m doomed because I deliberately turned my back on God. I think a fitting response is found in the story of the prodigal son – a man who must have suffered great degradation in his life, probably an alcoholic and a womanizer. Nevertheless, he was still his father’s son. Did the father condemn him when he returned truly sorry for what he had done? No, he forgave him, unreservedly. The prodigal son’s father says it best, “This brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Lk. 15:32 NW).
Some of us have to learn to appreciate the forgiveness of God the hard way by leaving the meeting, and then realizing what fools we have been. I’m not, of course, promoting the idea of being a prodigal son (or daughter) as a good thing in itself, but coming back has been great.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One